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Birthday Blog Month Jan05 – Alexa Milne

Welcome to January’s Birthday Blog, with a post – or maybe more – a day for your entertainment and fun :).

Today’s guest is ALEXA MILNE. Please show your appreciation for the post if you enjoy it, and all the author’s links are below for you to take forward. Watch every day for any Rafflecopter giveaways, and don’t forget there’s ALSO a Grand Prize Draw at the end of the month for ONE lucky commenter.

Many thanks for dropping in, and have a great January!

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Comfort Zones

I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. I used to in the past, but they never lasted beyond January, so I decided not to do them. I’m not going to set out ambitious writing plans either for next year. I am lucky to be able to write at my own pace and, although I set myself a weekly writing target of 5000 words, if I don’t reach it that’s okay. I don’t work well under pressure. In life, I like to get tasks done when I get them, and not leave things until the last moment. As a teacher, I always marked exam papers as soon as I got them. Now, if I have a blog post to write, I get it done beforehand. I prefer to pat myself on the back for achieving rather than set a target and not reach it.

Next year, so far, I have four new stories coming out – that may change as I have two stories completed but not edited yet. Today, Comfort Zone, a linked in story to my first novel, Sporting Chance, is available for early download at Pride Publishing.

Comfort Zone is the story of Aron and Joe. Aron is an inventor and entrepreneur with his own business, and Joe has his own catering firm. They first met a year before this story begins, when their cars broke down at the side of a road. However, their lives have changed since then. I won’t give too much away, but you find out exactly how much life has altered for Joe at the end of the first chapter.

The ideas for this book came from several sources, but the main one was a friend saying she had never held a baby, and didn’t want to. Babies make her feel uncomfortable. They are outside her experience and comfort zone. It made me think about things I’m not comfortable with. I don’t like insects – especially flying insects – and moths. Rats – no problem. Snakes – not an issue. But if there’s a moth in my bedroom, it either has to die or get out because I couldn’t sleep. Then there’s the idea of talking to a group of teachers in a formal setting. Meetings aren’t a problem, but standing in front of a group, even though I’ve given assemblies to over five hundred people, filled me with dread.

However, I did reach totally outside my comfort zone to send off my first novel to a publisher, and every time after that one, and now I can write a sex scene without my toes curling with embarrassment, even when I’m the only person in the room.

My characters often have events and issues from their pasts to overcome to get to their happy ever afters. In Comfort Zone, Aron has to overcome some pretty big fears and ask himself some big questions about what he believes to be important. He finds that stepping outside his comfort zone can be scary but also rewarding in the end.

Enter the Rafflecopter above with a comment on this post, for a free download of Comfort Zone.

Blurb for Comfort Zone

Aron Roberts helped his previous love discover a new one, so now he’s on his own, living only for his work and the times he manages to escape into the sky. He meets Joe Welsh again—a man he met at the roadside a year ago, a man who became an out-of-reach figure in his fantasies. Aron discovers Joe’s life has undergone major changes since their last meeting. The spark of attraction ignites into flames only to be put out by uncomfortable truths.

Can Aron overcome his fears and step out of his comfort zone to find love? Can Joe help Aron to deal with his past and trust him enough to allow Aron into his life?

With the help of family and friends, and a very determined one-year-old girl, Aron and Joe have a journey to make and obstacles to overcome, if they are ever going to get their happy ever after.

Author blurb

Originally from South Wales, Alexa has lived for over thirty years in the North West of England. Now retired, after a long career in teaching, she devotes her time to her obsessions.

Alexa began writing when her favourite character was killed in her favourite show. After producing a lot of fanfiction she ventured into original writing.

She is currently owned by a mad cat and spends her time writing about the men in her head, watching her favourite television programmes and usually crying over her favourite football team.

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About clarelondon

Clare London took her pen name from the city where she lives, loves, and writes. A lone, brave female in a frenetic, testosterone-fuelled family home, she juggles her writing with her other day job as an accountant.
She’s written in many genres and across many settings, with award-winning novels and short stories published both online and in print. She says she likes variety in her writing while friends say she’s just fickle, but as long as both theories spawn good fiction, she’s happy. Most of her work features male/male romance and drama with a healthy serving of physical passion, as she enjoys both reading and writing about strong, sympathetic, and sexy characters.
Clare currently has several novels sulking at that tricky chapter three stage and plenty of other projects in mind... she just has to find out where she left them in that frenetic, testosterone-fuelled family home.
Clare loves to hear from readers, and you can contact her here:
Website: http://www.clarelondon.com
E-mail: clarelondon11@yahoo.co.uk
Blog: www.clarelondon.com/blog
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/clarelondon
Twitter: https://twitter.com/clare_london
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/clarelondon
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/author/clarelondon/
Google+ : https://plus.google.com/u/0/+ClareLondon/posts

My new job is forcing me to! I’m not really a marketer – of myself or anything else. But this firm requires that I take control of my own career and network with the appropriate folks to get staffed and onto projects that will build my personal brand. UGH! For an introvert who would rather have the work speak for itself, this is a bit like water torture!

Even though I am an introvert and would be happier reading a book, I occasional go outside my comfort zones especially when I trained to become a teacher. I partly did this to help my confidence and it did. Thank you for the giveaway